


there’s no fate only our choices (and i choose you every time)

by DisasterLesbean



Category: Terminator - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Post-Canon Fix-It, Time travel has consequences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 13:55:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21321289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisasterLesbean/pseuds/DisasterLesbean
Summary: “You’re alive?” Dani’s voice is soft, she’s shocked. The soldiers go from confused to understanding, they start moving back to the base. Grace is from their before and everyone respects the before, it’s rare to find someone from their past lives. Jackson smiles at her, happy she’s found some of her people. He doesn’t know the half of it.
Relationships: Grace/Dani Ramos
Comments: 22
Kudos: 395





	there’s no fate only our choices (and i choose you every time)

She first sees them in dreams. Images of red eyes and the smell of burning flesh. She has nightmares for two weeks. She thinks that’ll be it, weird nightmares she can’t shake. Except then she gets into a fight. Not just a little scuffle, a full on fight. The thing is she should have gotten her ass kicked.

Instead, she kicks their asses.

Her parents are worried, they ask her why she got into a fight. She said they were bullying the kid with a stutter. They thought she did the right thing but told her not to do it again. She doesn’t know why they don’t ask her how she won against three older boys.

The nightmares get worse and she snaps to, awake in seconds and body ready to fight. 

Her parents start to get worried.

She keeps her back to walls and surveys rooms, she starts running and exercising. Sometimes she gets into fights, she never loses them. She hasn’t taken a single fighting class in her life but if anyone saw her fight they’d think she’s been training for years.

The dreams get longer, more substantial. They go from flashes of red and muffled cries to running for miles and hiding for hours. 

Then the feelings start up. She knows what it feels like to starve, really truly starve. To be so hungry she’d be willing to eat anything, she’d be willing to do anything for food. She knows what it feels like to be stabbed, slashed, all but dead. 

She knows what it is to have purpose, to be willing to die.

She’s a trained soldier at an age when she shouldn’t even know what she wants to do for a career. The thing is, she knows there won’t be a future. There won’t be a desk job in her future. The red eyes and oiled machines will take that.

She’s better than a soldier, she’s more than a soldier. She’s stronger, faster, or she was. Would her body react the same? She breaks her hand on some jackasses face and learns that doesn’t extend to reality. 

She knows the dreams are real. They aren’t fantasies or hallucinations like her parents and the doctors they take her to think they are. How else would she know how to disassemble a gun in record time and be able to fight off truant officers? That one lands her in real trouble.

She starts remembering during the day, she gets intense feelings, it’s like a constant stream and she’s the only viewer. 

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“I’m not.”_

It’s followed by so much pain but a satisfying kind of pain. The kind after a good workout when she can’t lift her arms, the kind that rips her apart as she protects that which matters most.

She knows she died, somewhere. She starts wondering if this is some kind of reincarnation but the robots make it seem more like the future than the past. 

_“Have you heard? A terminator got sent back to kill the commander.”_

_Running, feet slapping against metal as she runs as fast as she can muster. For an augment, it’s fast. Doors slam open and so many heads turn her way, all blurs._

_“Send me back.”_

_ “Grace.” It’s a sad sound, resigned. Familiar, heartbroken._

She got sent back, she’s sure of it. 

It comes back patchy but sure, steady.

Everything stops on day one.

Her phone stops working and the radio stations are freaking out. 

“It’s happening.” Grace says evenly. Her parents look her way, terrified. It’s what she’s been saying since she woke up in a cold sweat, the future she predicted. They thought there was something wrong with her but now it’s happening. Now they have to face reality.

“What do we do?” They ask a child they’d thought crazy twenty minutes ago.

“Run.” Running is their only hope.

They pack their bags and load up in the car. Cars are racing by each other, one hits another in front of their house. “You think they’d be more safe.” Her father complains, stressed out and starting to sweat.

She looks back at their house as they pull away and sees a young woman. She’s familiar, somehow. She see Grace and yells, moving towards Grace. An older woman turns at the younger woman’s exclamation, obviously cursing. She gestures for their own car as Grace’s quickly outpaces them on foot. Their car is blocked by the wreckage of the crashed car. The young woman looks distressed, gesturing at the mess. 

Their jeep glares at her and she remembers a day at the park. A jeep that looks the same, her attention devoted to it. Devoted to the passengers.

She places a hand on the glass, trying to reach them but not knowing why.

She sees the young woman’s mouth move, mouthing her name. The older woman reassuringly grabs her arm.

A car hits them.

She remembers the explosion and needing to get to the commander, she’s been blown up a few times. 

There’s a mess, people start fighting already. The women don’t make it to her car. She lives, so does her father and brother, but her mother died on impact. 

This time, she’s smarter. She understands the struggle of the first few years and she’s prepared.

This time, her father doesn’t die over a can of peaches.

He dies protecting her brother from raiders.

She thinks it’s worth it until her brother dies two weeks later.

She’s alone, just like last time. She has her memories.

They become an escape. She has to live in this terrible world, prisoner to starvation and desperation. The remaining humans will do anything to survive, she’s lucky that she can defend herself this time. 

She starts remembering love. A gentle caress after not seeing someone for weeks, the reassuring squeeze that yes, she’s still alive. She remembers what it feels like to be kissed by the person who holds her heart, she remembers what it feels like to kiss that same person knowing she’ll never see them again. 

_“Grace!”_

_“I can hear just fine.”_

_“Don’t get use that tone, you volunteered for augments?”_

_“I was going to die. Excuse me for trying to live.”_

_“We both know that’s not why you volunteered.”_

_“What do you want me to say?”_

_“I don’t want you to do these things for me, I don’t want you to die for me.”_

_“I’m not trying to die, I just can’t let you die.”_

“You’re a spitfire, aren’t you?” He’s massive, wearing armor she hasn’t seen the likes of outside of her memories. She’s dirty, closer to starving than not, and she just saved his life from one of the machines. She reaches a hand down to help him up, another vague hint of a memory.

“Food to spare?” She asks, her voice rough from disuse.

“Give you one better, come join the resistance and you won’t have to worry about food.” She was in the resistance, once upon a time. She was important, someone. Maybe she just knew someone. Regardless, this is what she’s been preparing for since she was a kid.

She joins the resistance.

She’s not near the hub, a bit far off. Luckily, the resistance is far spread by now. She makes a name for herself quickly, she’s good at following orders and even better at killing machines. A bunch of them try to give her nicknames, leading to some confusion as to what she actually goes by.

The augment trials start in the hub but they reach the outer colonies. She signs up for the trials as soon as they reach her.

She thinks about going to the hub, she knows she should. That’s where she was last time, it’s where she’s meant to be. It’s where that person is, the person who held her at night and cried when she was sent back in time. 

Her colony needs her, they have less reinforcements than most and she’s the equivalent of a dozen soldiers.

The crashes from her augments are fierce and she gets even more memories, they sink their hooks in. It’s like now that she’s become who she’s meant to, she’s allowed full access. 

_“She reminds me of myself.”_

_“Who are you?”_

_“She’s John.”_

_“You knew me?”_

“We’re going to the hub.” Jackson, the same lug who recruited her, tells her.

“Why?” She’s tinkering with her gun, not really cleaning it. 

“They’re dissolving this post, too far out and too few people. They think we’d do more good supporting the main force.” 

“Why not send us to a different outer colony?”

“I don’t make the calls. Ask the boss when we get there.” He shrugs at her. Her stomach swirls with anticipation. She’s always meant to go to the hub but she’s afraid. There’s a whole world there she doesn’t belong to but remembers.

It goes to shit, as all things do in this world. Their meeting party gets ambushed while they’re still in the air.

“Go get ‘em.” Jackson slaps her on the back.

Augments are dangerous, that’s why they’re voluntary. In her memories, there was only one line of augments. Often, the subject died in surgery. She was an odd exception who lived which made her invaluable. In this timeline, they’re safer. They’re still not safe, people still die, but they’re safer. Rumor is the commander is integral in their creation, she oversees all the safety measures. 

Grace signed up for the first trial, when the second came out she signed up for that too. As far as she’s aware, she’s the only person who’s signed up for all three. She’s on the third now, her body a mess of augments and inorganics. 

Jackson thinks that’s another reason they’re getting recalled, she’d be useful to the hub as she is. 

“I might save you some.” Grace offers sardonically.

“Don’t lie, I haven’t had anything fun to do in weeks.” Jackson complains.

“Not my fault you aren’t a badass.” He pouts pathetically at her. She waves him off and steps off the aircraft mid flight. 

She lands in front of the struggling resistance fighters. A flash of an ambush hits her, the fear of losing the commander. She knows the commander is here now, she’s not known as one to hide from a fight. She wanted to greet the new additions to the hub.

“Terminator?” A soldier asks, unsure of the person who didn’t flinch from a fall.

“She came from the ship, must be an augment. Lucky us.” A familiar gruff voice muses.

Their respite is quickly over and they're under siege once again. She does her best to intercept attacks on the soldiers but she hears some fall regardless. She’s a third gen augment but she’s still human. She isn’t immortal and she isn’t stronger than an army of synthetics dedicated to annihilating them. 

Still, by the end more are alive than not because she is there.

“Someone’s getting slow.” Jackson smacks her shoulder, grin lighting his face up. “There were still plenty when we got here.”

“She’s hit, asshole.” Ramirez pushes Jackson off of her. “How bad?” Ramirez eyes the crack in her armor that’s oozing blood.

“Not too bad, it can wait until we get inside.”

“Is she okay?” A different voice asks, this one too much like her memories.

“Yes commander, she’ll be fine.” Jackson’s easy manner dissipates, respect causing him to stand taller.

“She’ll be fine? Tell me that when she’s passed out because she wants to pretend it isn’t as bad as it is.” Ramirez scoffs.

“Forgive Ramirez, she’s tired of having to patch our sorry sacks up.” Jackson smiles at Ramirez. He’s an easy going guy but Ramirez brings out his best. 

“You act like we’re always hurt. We’re better than that, ma’am.” Grace says, trying to make it seem like they’re less of a mess. They might do things different than the hub but that doesn’t mean they aren’t as good of soldiers.

“Holy fucking shit.” The older woman curses from behind her, she turns around.

“Ay, Dios mio.” 

Grace looks into her past and knows she’s found her future. 

“We saw your car blow up.” The older woman, Sarah her mind supplies, says.

Grace shrugs, memories sliding into place at last. All the threads connecting. “I survived.”

“You’re alive?” Dani’s voice is soft, she’s shocked. The soldiers go from confused to understanding, they start moving back to the base. Grace is from their before and everyone respects the before, it’s rare to find someone from their past lives. Jackson smiles at her, happy she’s found some of her people. He doesn’t know the half of it. 

“I’m alive.” She’s softer, too. She always has been to Dani. She’s gruff and aggressive to most people, as Sarah had seen. Although Sarah irritated her more than most. At least in the beginning, by the end Grace respected and cared for her as well. Just in a different way. Dani inspires her best.

It was difficult travelling back, away from her Dani. The one who knew the love she holds and returned it. Every action was fueled by love. Saving Dani, dying for her. She hadn’t told the past Dani that, how could she? She held knowledge that was unfair to Dani, it wasn’t her after all. She didn’t tell her but it didn’t stop Grace from loving her. 

She was sure to stay near Dani at all times. She needed to in order to protect her but also to ease that wounded part of her heart. Every time Dani checked on her, slept on her, sought her out, Grace felt herself grow more determined to protect her. Still, she respected when Dani put her foot down. She wanted to hide Dani away and protect her but that’s never been who Dani is, it’s why she’s always loved her. 

“Yeah well, an explosion doesn’t have much on me.” Grace shrugs with easy confidence. 

Dani takes large steps, just barely not running, and wraps her arms around Grace. “I thought you died again.” Dani’s voice is watery. She’s trying not to put pressure on Grace’s wound but she doesn’t care, she just tightens her grip on Dani and takes the pain.

“You look good.” Sarah tells her, gun at the ready in case more terminators find them.

“You don’t look too bad either.” She tells her over Dani’s shoulder.

“You remember me?” Sarah asks, suspicious. Paranoid old coot. 

“I remember everything.” Dani pulls back at her words, surprised. She looks around and the commander comes back. 

“We should continue this inside.”

They wander inside, Sarah and Dani at either side of her. They twitch, as if expecting her to collapse. Considering the crashes from the first augment, she gets it. An unfortunate drawback of augments. Even in the third gen they haven’t eliminated the crashes, just lengthened the time before she needs a shot. Still, the patter of her blood against the floor isn’t reassuring. 

Jackson and Ramirez are waiting just inside, Ramirez already has her latex gloves on.

“Not too bad, huh?” Ramirez shakes her head, gesturing for a nearby crate. Dani looks like she doesn’t want to let Grace out of her space yet but lets it happen. 

“Considering as bad as it could have been, I’d say not too bad.” Grace replies easily, sitting down before Ramirez decides she is done as company medic.

“One day, I’m going to let you bleed out. Don’t laugh, I mean you too.” She directs the last half at Jackson. 

“Jackson and Grace are being chewed out already?” Will asks, stowing away his sniper. 

“When aren’t they? Grace knows the commander apparently.” Alexa replies.

“Looks like it’s going to hit the rumor mill, might want to get ahead of it.” Sarah tells Dani. Dani nods in agreement, eyes scanning over Grace. 

“We’ll all talk later.”

Grace takes the opportunity to sleep after she’s patched up, the energy drain catching up to her. 

_Dani’s looking over a map of the area, tapping her finger while she considers a plan of attack. “If you attack from the east, we’ll have the high ground.” Grace offers, hoping to break the silence. Things have been awkward between them for weeks and Grace isn’t sure why._

_Dani looks up at her and then to the east on the map. “They have ships, high ground hardly matters.” They both know high ground always matters. She’s just disagreeing with Grace to disagree with her._

_Grace sighs, irritated. She’s never been the best at moderating her feelings. She stands up, grabbing her rifle. “If you don’t need me here, I’m going to relieve Ralph on guard duty.” Dani’s always been open to her, there’s always been something between them. Dani is kind to everyone in the resistance, she knows most of them and has some type of relationship with them. It’s vain but Grace always knew their connection is special. She hasn’t had to deal with Dani being dismissive or rude to her. They fight, of course they do. Grace does a lot of things that piss Dani off and Grace doesn’t always agree with Dani. Sometimes they conflict but it’s never been something that affects them for so long. They always talk about it._

_“Wait, don’t go.” Dani pushes away from the table, walks over to her. “You never told me. Everything that happened, you- you never told me.” Dani has that distant look she gets sometimes. At first Grace thought it was trauma, ghosts they all have. She knows it’s something else, like Dani is remembering something Grace can’t._

_Grace’s eyebrows pull together, setting her rifle down. “What do you mean?”_

_“How long have you had feelings for me, Grace?” Dani doesn’t soften her words at all, their meaning inescapable. Grace stutters, awkwardness overcoming her. She’s prepared for a lot of things but not Dani asking about the one thing she doesn’t share._

_“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

_“You’ve always been the worst liar.”_

_“Yeah well, maybe I don’t want to talk about it.”_

_ Dani looks irritated but she relaxes, she moves between Grace and the door. She leans against the wall, as if sensing Grace’s desire to run. “I should have noticed, you were so…” Dani trails off, as if speaking to herself. She looks up, determination etching itself across her face. “Last month, I got shot. You carried me on your back, all the way back to base. You didn’t wait for backup, you didn’t patch up your own wounds. You just bandaged mine and looked at me with this look. I haven’t seen a look that tender since before Legion, since someone told me I was special. That I was the future. It hit me then, what I actually mean to you.”_

_Grace bites her tongue, swallowing the jealousy at whoever said that to Dani. They’re likely dead by the past tense Dani uses, it does no good to be jealous of the dead. Still, she agrees with their sentiment. Dani is her future, in every way. “You could have just said you weren’t interested, or better yet, ignored it.” Grace hates the way they’ve been since then, awkward and not like themselves at all._

_ “That’s the thing Grace, you never tell me things. You wait, ration your knowledge and feelings. If you just told me, we could have talked about it.” Dani’s says, pissed again. Grace tells her everything, she isn’t sure where Dani’s ire is coming from. “Did it ever occur to you I felt the same way?” Grace freezes, her eyes widening. “I didn’t realize until I figured out how you felt but of course I feel the same. Why didn’t you tell me?” Dani’s voice softens and she steps closer, she’s torn between being here and wherever her mind travels. “You died and-”_

_“I didn’t die, Dani. I just got hospitalized for a while.”_

_ “Yes, of course.” Dani shakes herself free from her demons and traces her thumb over Grace’s lips. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”_

_Grace presses her lips together, displeased. “I’m never stupid.”_

_ You shouldn’t look so cute when you’re affronted.” Dani huffs a laugh. Her smile spreads like the clouds splitting to show the sun._

_Grace does what anyone with a brain would and leans forward, ducking her head down to kiss Dani._

She wakes up to Sarah hovering over her. “Wake up sunshine, we’ve got a lot to talk about.” 

“Because you’re always great at talking.” Grace gets out of bed and grabs her jacket.

“Better than you, if I wasn’t there to mediate you would have wrapped Dani away in bubble wrap.” 

Grace gives Sarah a look, unashamed. “Sorry, typically I don’t use friends as bait.”

“No, you just leave them on rooftops.” 

“You were hardly my friend then.” They round a corner, Dani waiting for them with an amused expression.

“Are we friends now? Should I go run off for a friendship bracelet?” 

“It would clash with your clothes. Have you ever changed or did you decide one outfit is all you need?” 

“Somethings don’t change.” Dani laughs, eyes glowing. 

“She’s still stuck up, that’s for sure.” Sarah shakes her head, sitting down. Grace opens her mouth, ready to spout off a threat, but closes it when she sees Dani shaking her head. “Still just as obedient too, good doggy.” 

“Fuck off, isn’t there a geriatrics ward somewhere?” 

“Alright!” Dani cuts in, stopping their arguing. “How do you remember everything, Grace?”

Grace shrugs, zipping the jacket up and sitting down. “I was a kid and I started to get these dreams. They got more intense. I started to be able to do things I shouldn’t be able to. After a while I realized they were memories and not dreams.”

“Hm, bleed over. Grace went back to a time where her younger self still existed, there’s bound to be some kind of repercussions. I’m surprised it didn’t just erase you from existence.” Sarah says, considering the implications. 

“What do you remember?” Dani asks. 

“Like I said, everything. The first time, before I was sent back. Being sent back, dying. Then life until the bleed over.”

“You were doomed to live the same life.” 

“The skills helped keep me alive.” Grace shrugs, not having issues with that particular issue.

“Well, we’ve got our augmented supersoldier back. Happy endings all around.” Sarah says sarcastically, they’re pretty far from a happy ending. 

It’s more like before she went back, after that. She isn’t running around and trying to protect Dani like when she went back. She’s a soldier with orders, with a purpose. They all are. 

Take down Legion and save humanity. 

In their free time, the three of them spend time together. It’s known that Sarah is Dani’s right hand, she always has been. Now, people know Grace is her left hand. They’re Dani’s closest confidants and allies, her best friends. 

She notices the new aspect of Sarah and Dani’s relationship. She saw it then, while they were running. Sarah cared for Dani, she wanted to protect her. Despite all of Sarah’s comments, she grew to care for Dani. Sarah said she saw herself in Dani but she sees more. In Dani, she sees who she is. She isn’t just John’s mother, no matter how much she loves him. She’s a strong woman in her own right. She found liberation from a future that measures her worth by her womb. She’s sure Sarah loves Dani, even if it’s odd for Grace to consider.

She still sees Sarah as a grouchy old woman. If she cares about Sarah too, she keeps it to herself.

Considering it’s Sarah who ultimately outs Grace’s feelings and her past relationship with Dani, her opinion of Sarah changes frequently.

Dani’s half-asleep, half-awake on Grace’s lap. Her eyes keep drooping, fighting off sleep. Grace’s rubbing circles into her side, lulling her to sleep. Dani doesn’t get enough, there’s always something that needs the commander’s attention. 

“Oh.” Sarah’s voice explodes like a bullet, shattering the moment. Grace sits up, eyes scanning the room for the threat. Dani similarly looks around. “Calm down, we’re in the middle of the base it’s not like a terminator can just stroll in.” 

Grace scowls at Sarah, tension still gathered. “What’s wrong?” Dani asks, her voice sleepy.

“I knew you had known Dani, back then.” Sarah has their full attention. “Don’t get me wrong, at first I thought you were just an overprotective asshole. Then I paid attention. You anticipated her movements, her thoughts. You stayed closer than necessary. You looked at her in this way, no one looks at strangers that way not even if they’re meant to protect them. So I knew before you told us. I just didn’t know she was the leader, that part escaped me.”

“Why are you telling us now?” Dani asks confused. Grace gets a bad feeling, she opens her mouth to protest but Sarah talks through it. 

“I thought she must know you, mostly I thought she’d know your son. Then she told us there was no son. She knew you, you saved her. I got a hint of it then. The way she kneeled and looked at you. I waved it away. She saw you as some hero, it must just be hero worship. Now? Why is she looking at you, unshowered and half-asleep, like you’re something to be worshiped?” Sarah stands, grabbing her gun. “Seems like something you two should sort out but what do I know.” Sarah leaves with a pleased smirk. 

“Grace?” It’s so reminiscent of last time. She sees Dani looking over all her memories, everything Grace has said and done. 

“The Dani from before was more than a friend.” Grace says, not hiding from the truth. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” So similar.

“You’re the same person but you aren’t her, it’s unfair to put expectations like that on you.” 

“Idiota.” She pulls Grace in by her collar and she’s kissing Dani again after so many years. She wraps an arm around Dani’s waist, pulling her closer. “Don’t you dare fucking die this time.” 

“Of course not.” Except Grace can’t make that promise. If it’s between Dani’s life and her own, she will always make the same choice.

They’re going to try and strike at Legion, eventually. An assault that size? There’s no guarantees on any of their lives. Grace will ensure Dani survives it. It occurs to Grace that maybe they’ll both survive, maybe there’s a world where they live together. 

She hopes it’s this one.


End file.
